she's gonna blow...

warning: this post contains a vivid description of being sick...don't continue reading if you are sensitive to that sort of thing...

there are few things i hate worse in this world than being sick. and of the common illnesses that happen throughout the year (cold, cough, fever, vomiting, etc.) the one i hate the worst is puking. here is how my day started...

so i was supposed to work today. my alarm went off around 530am this morning. i got up and felt a little queasy. i shook it off and hopped in the shower. i was standing in the shower and thought to myself that i really wasn't feeling good. my stomach was turning flip flops. i made it through the shower, stepped out and this tidal wave rushed over me. before i knew it, i was praying to the porcelain god and he was saying, "dude, you don't look so good." well, he was right. shortly there after, i gave him a little deposit for his comment. honestly, i gave him a few. so i stood up, dried myself off, and proceeded to get dressed. whatever...my body was obviously having a different plan for me today. so i again made a quick deposit to the lovely white basin (by the way, you don't realize how dirty your toilet is until you are face to face with it!). my favorite part (that was purely sarcastic!) is that now i have nothing left in my stomach except a drop or two of stomach acid. so now it's on to the dry heaves!!

now, i am a nurse and work in an icu. for those of you not familiar with how it works when you need to call in sick, you are supposed to do it by 4:00 or it is considered a no show. this allows plenty of time for them to find a replacement. well, it was now 6:00. i knew that if i went to work, i didn't know that i could make it all the way without either a-puking in my car (which is brand new and i really don't want to do that) or b-pulling over to puke on the side of the road, especially since i have a 40 minute commute. not really my idea of fun. then what good would i be once i got to work? hi, my name is angie, i'm your nurse today...excuse me while i go yak in the garbage can. so i called my beloved charge nurse (hi lori, if you are reading this...) and discussed my options with her. now just a little back ground here...previous to me becoming a nurse, i worked as a stafffer in the staffing office. why is that important here you may ask? cause these are the people you call when you call in sick that find you a replacement. so i know what a pain in the butt it is to have someone call in an hour before their shift is supposed to start. back to lori. so i told her what was going on and asked her what i should do. should i try and come to work or stay home and take up residence on the bathroom floor (which also needs to be cleaned, apparently!) she was very kind and concerned and explained that i just wouldn't be that great of a nurse if i was puking on my patient (of course, she expressed this more eloquently than me). then i commented that it was 6am and that i was concerned about the whole no show rule. and her response is why i love the place i work as much as i do. she said something to the effect of rules are rules, but your body sometimes doesn't understand the concept of time and it doesn't matter if it is 4 am or 6am, it makes you puke when it needs to. and if it's after the 4am golden hour then sometimes we have to not worry about the rules and tells me to go and try feel better and stop throwing up. (again, she probably phrased it better than that...after all, it was 6am and i had just been yaking and now i was crying so i don't remember her exact words!) the message i'm trying to get across here is that she is awesome and i love her!

so back to my story... i hang up the phone, proceed back into the bathroom and heave some more. well by this time, i've made quite a racket, what with me trying to expel the lining of my stomach out and me sobbing cause i'm feeling so perky, that i have woken up my boyfriend. i decide it would be best to maybe get something in me that might help with all the retching (even though the thought of this made me retch even more), so i grab the bottle of pink stuff and take a big ole chug. oh my...it was like waiting for mt vesuvius to blow. i somehow managed to keep it down and dragged my butt back to bed, with a garbage can at the ready. my loving boyfriend asked if i was going to live or did he need to take me to the hospital. i heaved a bit more, then between sobs, told him no i didn't need to go to the hospital cause i'm puking. i managed to roll over, along with the wave of pink stuff in my gut, to see if i could maybe get back to sleep and sleep away the retching in my tummy. well, long story short (oops, too late), here i am, after an hour and a half of laying in bed not sleeping. thankfully, i haven't lost my cookies (or pink stuff, rather), but still have this ongoing cycle of waves of nausea, enough that a fine surfer could probably ride out for the rest of the day. aren't you jealous??

i'm sure that was probably a little more detail and insight into my gi tract than you wanted to know, but if you made it this far after my warning, than i don't feel so bad for you!!!i'm off to find some crackers...and perhaps cozy up to a nice cold basin again.